


A Thisby Happily Ever After

by memoriesandmint



Category: The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Marriage, Pregnancy, capaill uisce, scorpio races - Freeform, sean is sharp but he is soft for puck, the scorpio races - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 04:52:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11798793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memoriesandmint/pseuds/memoriesandmint
Summary: A mini-fic based on The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, specifically on George Holly saying: “I'll come back next year and you'll have a nest of horses outside your window and Puck Connolly in your bed and I'll buy from you instead of Malvern. That's your future for you.” Just a drabble full of reflecting Sean Kendrick, a sleeping, pregnant Puck, and wishes made true.





	A Thisby Happily Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> Based on The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, including the quote: “I'll come back next year and you'll have a nest of horses outside your window and Puck Connolly in your bed and I'll buy from you instead of Malvern. That's your future for you.”
> 
> There were indentations but... they're gone and I don't know how to get them back.

Sean woke up, late, and his heart raced with his mind until he remembered that there was nothing left to be late for. There was no competition on the beach to train for, not with four months until the next Scorpio Races. He wasn’t working at Malvern’s Yard anymore. George Holly, who came to visit his broodmare in January, stepped on a boat headed for America two weeks before. Sean paid Beech Gratton the day he got his order, so there was no need to head to the butcher’s on the early Friday morning. Even his own horses weren’t waiting on him to get their breakfast and muck out their stalls—Sean could hear the grooms talking amongst themselves and banging around outside amid the nickering horses.  
As for Kate, she was still sleeping, her body curled into itself, except for the leg that stuck out to cross an ankle with Sean’s. Her toes were pressed against his other calf, all five of them cold, even under the blankets.  
Sometimes, Sean still thought of her as Kate, from the time before she’d allowed him use of her nickname. How reserved they’d been then and for weeks afterward. How different life was now. He’d wished for happiness and his heart felt swollen with the joy this life brought him.  
There were goosebumps on the bit of shoulder exposed beneath the big, fluffy comforter. Sean reached for her, pulled her closer until she curled around him instead. Hair that escaped from Puck’s braid overnight tickled his jaw and he tucked his chin between his neck and her head to make it stop. The right corner of his mouth pulled up anyway.  
Sean laid with her a while, rubbing a hand over Puck’s back beneath the blankets. She’d nuzzled her face into the hollow above his collarbone, the only person unfazed by his sharp edges. He kissed her temple softly and removed himself from the bed he’d come to like very much since Puck moved in. He headed toward the kitchen after tucking the blankets around Puck’s cold shoulder.  
Sean filled the teapot, painted by Puck herself, and put it onto the wood stove. It lit with only one match, a prediction for a good day, his father always said. He was watching from the window above the sink when one of the grooms took up a reel, whistling it while shaking cans of grain, and leading in the broodmares from the pasture just outside the house. When Sean and Puck installed the fence, they agreed that they wanted the horses as close as possible. Now, dropping mint leaves into two chipped cups, Sean stood inside, only feet away from Dove, who was once again round-bellied from carrying George Holly’s half-capall foal.  
Originally, Holly and Sean agreed that the broodmare Sean recommended last October would be bred to Corr, but the red stallion wasn’t at all taken with the thoroughbred. He didn’t care for her as mate or meal. Dove, on the other hand, remained as fascinating to Corr as she had on the cliffs back when Sean found himself intrigued by Puck Connolly.  
She wasn’t Puck Connolly anymore. Everyone still called her Puck, of course, but legally, she was Kate Kendrick. Sean remembered the night she’d told him she wanted to change it, a few weeks before they got married. She’d ran a hand over his chest and told him that she’d always been protective about the elite club of Connollys, but Sean was her weakness. He was a part of the woman she wanted to become. Puck took his name the day of their wedding, on the cliffs halfway between Saint Columba’s and the sea, Father Mooneyham officiating and Peg Gratton providing a bit of Thisby magic. A few of the people in attendance swore to the couple afterward that they’d caught glimpses of Epona, the Mare Goddess, watching from a distance, shells falling from her blood streaked hand into the surf.  
That was in December. Now, Sean and Puck were settled into their home: the house Sean’s father left him. Finn had painted “The Kenricks’” on the mailbox in bright yellow paint as his wedding present to them; it was hard to see some days, but they loved it all the same. Sean had horses of his own in his barn and Corr in a stall he’d renovated just for the uisce stallion. Puck had a standing order at Palsson’s bakery and her stomach was rounding out; having enough food to eat was dramatizing the way that she was just beginning to show.  
Puck told him in March, her hands clasping his to her already softening body. Sean had kissed the inside of her wrist and all of her freckles, delighting in the laughter ringing in his ears like charmed bells. This girl had coaxed him into putting both feet on land and the way she sang while she cooked dinner that night, chicken and bread stuffing with no beans in sight, called to him more than the sea ever had.  
This, after all, was what he’d wished for without knowing it was what he needed for happiness. He poured water into both cups and walked Puck’s into the room where she was stirring, the new groom’s whistling growing louder as he walked through the pasture shaking out flakes of hay. By the time he stood in front of her, she’d sat up at the edge of the bed and was fiddling with her braid. Sean placed the still-steeping tea on the nightstand and ran a hand over the back of Puck’s head, smoothing his fingers through the hair that she’d unbraided with sleepy, stumbling fingers. She hummed softly and leaned her forehead against his chest. He stepped between her knees and pressed his lips to the crown of her head.  
Soon, he’d go out and saddle Corr, not to train, but simply to ride. In a few weeks, Holly would come back, more to enjoy Thisby and its attractions (especially the blind ones), than to do business. The weather would cool and The Scorpio Races would arrive around the same time the baby did. In the spring, the first generation of Kendrick foals would be born.  
Sean smiled into Puck’s hair. The schedule could continue like this forever without tiring him, but he was glad for this moment. Soon, there would be more to this life, but for now, it was simple as they had always been.


End file.
